As The Associated Press’ Scott Sonner reported last week, rural Nevadans are suing to block the Obama administration’s greater sage grouse protection plan. They say a trail of internal government documents shows politics was the driving force behind a pre-determined policy that flies in the face of its experts’ own best science.
Mr. Sonner noted that the latest motion filed in federal court seeks to void protections that have severely restricted development of millions of acres of federal land across 10 Western states. Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt and lawyers for nine Nevada counties, ranchers and miners say three top Interior Department officials who dubbed themselves the “Grouseketeers” illegally sought input from conservationists outside the planning process.
...What’s especially galling is that the sage grouse’s biggest enemy is arguably the federal government, not the prospect of mining or ranching or, dare we say it, joining the fracking boom. Land mismanagement has contributed to greater wildfire damage, the single greatest threat to sage grouse habitat. Further, there’s this Catch-22: Ravens are responsible for about half of all predator-caused losses to sage grouse, but ravens are a federally protected species. In addition, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management can’t contain the wild horse population, which tramples the sagebrush.
Granted, it would have been far worse had Secretary Jewell enacted a sage grouse listing. But the lawsuit’s allegation of federal government overreach should hardly be a shock at this point. It’s another example among many of the federal government having too much domain over land in the West. The solution is to transfer more federal lands to state and local interests, which have far more incentive to take better care of them and to ensure their productive use.
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